Stone Cold Miracle
by Mia-Zeklos
Summary: As Anwen grows up, it only gets harder to deny what everyone already knows to be true.


**Author's Notes: The first thing I should probably say is sorry. I did not intend for this fic to happen. I don't know where it came from. I can only promise that it won't happen again.**

**It was tormenting me for days, so I wrote it down and then I deemed it good enough to post, so here it is. First – and most likely last – time writing this pairing, and Anwen, so feedback would be greatly appreciated.**

She sits at his grave at first, wasting away hours and then days there. Rhys is reminding her – constantly, and with all the subtlety of an elephant – that she should stop. Gwen can't really blame him, though. Rhys doesn't know even half of the reasons that led her here.

She knows there's not much of a point in being here, because there isn't anything she should need to come back for. Just a cold, empty grave – because of Jack's adamant demands, Ianto's body had been put in cold storage in UNIT's morgue – and yet she can't help it.

"Jack left Earth last night," she says as she plays with the zipper of her jacket. "Something's really shaken him, I think, and this morning I heard about this pub we've been meaning to investigate, and that it disappeared literally overnight and, of course, I thought, 'Rift activity'. I snooped around a bit, met the people that escaped from it before that. They mentioned a Jack Harkness and his companion. They all gave the same description – tall, young, dark hair, blue eyes, wearing a suit. Was it really you and why didn't Jack say anything? Where are you now? I wish I could have seen you once more, at least. It would have made everything easier."

She shudders as the cold winter wind attacks yet again. Rhys often uses that as an argument as well. The graveyard wasn't exactly the warmest place one could imagine. It wasn't good for the baby, he said.

"The baby," she whispers at last, finally getting to the topic that brings her here every day as she fidgets with something in her hands and never quite dares to speak of it. "God, Ianto, he's so excited and I can't tell him anything. We just found out it's going to be a girl. I've even picked a name. Anwen." Gwen tries zipping up her jacket to protect herself from the cold, but then looks down and sighs. There's not much left from her clothes that zips up these days, and she's still got two months and a half to go. "You know, once I was talking to Jack about whether I wanted kids, whether he wanted kids, and finally about you and he said that you hate children and that you'd be a lousy father. I believed him – you're just a bit too detached – but then, when you realized I was pregnant, you knew. It was simple to do the math, of course, but I could see it in your eyes. The way you looked at me right then, Ianto–" She gives a small, choked laugh. "Jack was wrong. You would have been brilliant." She gets up, at last, and for a moment stares at the gravestone in front of her. "I'll make sure she knows that. One way or another."

**o.O.o**

Babies, Gwen finds out soon enough, don't really look like either of their parents. The relatives say that they do, of course, but since it's quite unlikely that Anwen has taken the shape of her eyes from Rhys, Gwen's inclined to believe that they're making it all up. The blue eyes are a bit obvious, though, so Gwen says that her father had them (her mother sees right through that, because _Gwen_ has inherited her father's eyes and they were as far away from blue as they could get, but she knows that her mother would keep that curious tidbit of information to herself) and the matter is settled.

Gwen loves her daughter more than she'd loved anyone before and she's glad that, at least for now, she'll be protected from the rumours that would surely start raising their ugly heads when she's just a bit older. Most of all, she's conflicted. One part of her hopes that Anwen would have at least a little more from her father and the other desperately wishes that her eyes would stay the only debatable thing about her.

**o.O.o**

When Anwen is three, Rhys dies in a car crash. It's devastating and Gwen's mourning, but she's mostly furious that life had dared to take away even the last thing she had had to ground her. She's angry and unable to do anything but stay at home for nearly a month, but she tries to hide it because of her daughter. Tries to keep herself together, even after everything she's ever known is lost, because Anwen is still there and that's all that matters.

People offer her their condolences and say how awful it's going to be for Anwen to grow up without her father by her side, but that's the smallest of Gwen's troubles.

She's got over that fact when she'd been a month into her pregnancy.

There's a small, cruel, calculating part of her – a part she hates because it shows her the bitter truth and little else – thinks that Rhys's death is actually an act of mercy towards him. Now he'd never have to raise a daughter that looks and acts less like him with each passing day.

By the time Anwen is five, Rhys's mother comes to visit because she hasn't seen her granddaughter since she's been a baby. She spots her on the couch, engrossed in something on the telly and freezes, and Gwen knows what she's seeing, because she's been looking at it for quite some time.

Anwen is definitely tall for her age, even though there's still some sort of frail delicacy about her. She has Gwen's nose and her built, but everything else is all Ianto – her eyes, her hair, the shape of her face, even the way she yawns (and Gwen finds it both fascinating and heartbreaking that she could be so much like someone who had been long since dead by the time she was born). She looks almost ethereal and definitely like a stranger to a woman who had been expecting to see at least a part of her late son in her.

Brenda never visits again. Gwen understands her perfectly. There's not an ounce of the Williams's blood in Anwen, and it's visible for anyone who looks at her.

And Gwen feels better about that every time she thinks about it.

**o.O.o**

Gwen had been expecting the father questions to start as soon as Anwen started going to school, but she'd apparently underestimated her because the conversation arises earlier than expected. She'd been ready, though, and tells her whatever half-truths she feels to be right – mostly things that wouldn't traumatise her and ones she'd understand. When Gwen's friends – the ones she'd had before Anwen's birth – are asked about her father, they describe him as someone friendly, easy-going and trustworthy while Gwen tells her stories of someone selfless and bright and so brave that it usually bordered on idiocy. At the end, she's quite sure that her daughter ends up imagining him as some sort of a super hero.

And that, unsurprisingly, is absolutely fine.

It's what he was, after all.

Jack never comes to visit again, and she's glad. It's most likely for the best, because if he sets his eyes on Anwen even for a moment, he'll know, and Gwen isn't sure that she can bear the look of betrayal he'd give her then. It's really for the best if she buries it all down – Torchwood and everything and everyone it went along with. They're all best left as the skeletons in her closet.

Unfortunately, she knows that it would never be that easy.

**o.O.o**

Anwen's thirteen when Torchwood Two fuck things up big time; badly enough to be discovered. The media all immediately pounce on them, of course, and one by one, all the Torchwood branches are brought out in the open. The Institute in London – mostly because it was a glaringly obvious one, Gwen thinks – is the first one and then, inevitably, Three too.

Still, there's a reason they'd bought a house in the middle of nowhere, so Gwen hides away for days after that, waiting for the excitement to pass. She's listed as dead after the 456 for her own safety and yet, it's best if she didn't come out in the open. It would only rekindle the flame.

It's all over the news, though, and Gwen can't really stop Anwen from watching anything that she probably shouldn't. She knows her mother had been involved in Torchwood and has never really dug into it, but this is different. It's worldwide spread and kids in school are talking about it and, Gwen thinks with quiet pride, Anwen has always been curious. It's partially heritage from Gwen herself and partially the fact that she's never allowed her access to any information about her life prior her birth, and now she's getting exactly what she wants. Gwen lets her watch. It's not like it can stay buried forever. It's not like she wants it to.

That doesn't make it any less surprising when there's furious knocking on the door of Gwen's bedroom and then – without waiting for an answer – Anwen storms in, eyes wide and full of all the questions she wants to ask.

"Mum?" Her voice is a bit shaky, but she manages. "Can you come downstairs for a second?"

"What is it, sweetheart?" Gwen asks, instantly worried as she drops her book on the bed. "Has something happened?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Anwen waves her off, irritated and impatient. "Just– I want you to see something."

So Gwen shrugs and follows her daughter's dark curls as they disappear behind the corner and then down the stairs and into the living room where the telly is still on. It's some sort of a morning show and the topic is – who would guess? – Torchwood once more, and Gwen comes just this close to losing her temper and telling Anwen to turn it off when she sees what exactly the screen is showing.

There's a photo and a short biography – birth date, education, employment on Torchwood ground – and little else, but it's enough to leave her speechless and frozen in the middle of the room.

"Is that him?" Anwen asks quietly, her eyes piercing right through her mother's soul, or at least so it feels. "Is that – Is this him? Is that my father?" Her voice has an almost accusing note to it, as if she dares her to tell her 'no' and lie to her once more. The time for lies is over, though, so Gwen finally manages a small nod. "So you worked with him?" Another nod, this time a more certain one as she sat down on the edge of the sofa.

"How did you know?" She asks softly at last, voice thick with unspoken emotions. "How did you recognise him?" There have never been any pictures of anyone of her former colleagues – Gwen would never allow herself that – and it's really beyond her how she managed it, but Anwen just shrugs, as if it isn't a big deal at all.

"It wasn't all that difficult," she says haughtily, eyes still locked on the screen and her face expressionless. "I look just like him. Why didn't you ever tell me anything about him?"

"I told you everything you wanted to know," Gwen objects quickly. Not that it would make her back down; Anwen is clever and stubborn, which is sometimes a great combination and sometimes the worst thing she could imagine.

"You saved the world together!" This time, when Anwen looks at her, her eyes are shining with excitement. "You never said anything about _that_. Look at how much he did!"

Gwen stares at the screen in mild astonishment as all the positions Ianto had taken – both in One and Three – start rolling down the screen. She'd always joked about his efficiency, but it seemed to go beyond what she had seen.

"What happened to him?" Ah, there it was. The inevitable question that she'd been dancing around for the past ten years. "It wasn't a car crash, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," she admits after a short pause. She isn't really sure what to say. _He died so you could live_ doesn't sound very well even in her head.

Anwen twists around until she can face her mother fully. "Tell me about it."

And, for the first time in thirteen years, Gwen starts talking about a cloudy morning a long time ago when all the children in the world stopped moving.


End file.
